A poem for my AP language and composition class

Abstruse Oblivion

 

1  My mind roams free

2  Every night,

3  On an adventure,

4  Through the tumult of silence.

5  Everything is loud; everything is silent.

6  My mind out to all of the memories

7  Of the long hard day.

8  All is calm; all is wild.

9  My mind dregs

10  Through the past

11  Reminiscing bittersweet days

12  And mourning the ones wished forgotten.

13  Away slips my mind and my consciousness,

14  Reaching with open arms to the Almighty 

15  And deep down to embrace Lucifer.

16  My mind then forgets

17  The eyes, the ears

18  And sees and listens with the heart. 

19  In this prison

20  I find freedom

21  From everything

22  And from myself.

Self Analysis

Line 3/12:            Personification- “The mind” is said to “roam free.” Minds don’t actually get up and walk around. Minds also don’t mourn, technically.

Line 4:                   Oxymoron- Tumult is defined as disorder or an outbreak of disorder, which contradicts the word describing it, “silence.

Line 5/8:               Parallelism- Everything/all is _______; everything/all is _________ = similar structure

Line 11:                 Paradox- The word bittersweet contradicts itself, but is accurate.

Line 13:                 Zeugma- “Away slips my mind” and “away slips my consciousness” produce different meanings. The latter intends to create the picture of falling asleep and the former illustrates dreaming or the like.

Line 13:                 Inversion- Most would normally say “my mind slips away” or “my consciousness slips away.”

Line 14/15:          Allusion- “The Almighty” refers to God and “Lucifer” is Satan, in case you didn’t know. Referring to God brings to mind heaven and good things, so the mind thinks of good things. Mentioning Satan refers to hell, and thus bad things, and one might make the connection that the mind thinks of bad things.

Line 17:                 Metonymy- By looking at line 18, one can tell that “the eyes” refers to sight and “the ears” refers to hearing

Line 3/9/16:        Anaphora- While not in succession, the repetition of the phrase “my mind” should be evident.  Every other sentence begins with the phrase, emphasizing the subject, the narrator’s mind.